A Vegetable Cheese Steak in One Hand and a Sock in Another: Tragedy from Across the Street, Infatuation, and Half-Assed Fail of a Prom Invitation

Dear Diary,
























I'm so sick of high school. I mean, I feel like I'm stuck in all sorts of senseless drama all of the time and it's not even drama that I'm interested in. Like, I'm drawn towards doing pointless things that stress me out because I think that it'll make me happy when all I really wanna do is stay at home, eat some warm fluffy type of desert AND read a book, instead of trying to prove to myself and everybody else how awesome I am. I don't want to be awesome anymore, I just want to chill out with my dog and stop wearing makeup, go to college and have intelligent conversations with peers who care about more than these stupid relationships that everybody is obsessed with at this age. Can't we just be single and happy? I'm enough for myself, why can't my friends be enough for themselves too, darn it?!

Here's a short post of the day:

Infatuation.
If you really like someone, like LIKE them with a mad infatuation, but it's someone that you dated before and didn't care much for at the time...you should not keep this infatuation going. Seriously, END THIS MADNESS. I dated this one guy for a while and he was honestly really attractive, but while we were dating I didn't actually care about him in a serious-relationship type of way. I liked him and thought he was super fun, but I never had those intense butterflies or serious talks about the depths of my heart with him. And I didn't even start thinking about how much I liked him until after we stopped talking! That's the thing about a lot of girls, sometimes we just want what we can't have. And it's not the actual thing that we grasp for that is so appealing, it's the fact that we desire it that makes us keep reaching out. So, I was somewhat sad for a while that it didn't work out with him because on paper he was everything that a red-blooded male should be, tall, tan, intelligent, kind, universal sense of humor, gets along with seriously everyone. But something was definitely missing for me. It was some kind of extra "oomph" that I didn't feel for him, it was more like I wanted him to keep chasing me, bad as that sounds. He was such a great guy, I liked that he wanted to me with me, but in hindsight, I liked that this great guy liked me more than I actually liked the great guy. There was nothing wrong with him and we shared a sense of humor, but I didn't feel completely comfortable moving forward with him for some reason or another. And I wasn't sure that he would really get me, down at my core who I was, and understand that my carefree nature was sometimes an act. Because he was intelligent, but I wasn't sure that he was deep.
Hmm...I've never really reflected about why I didn't fall head over heels for him back then, actually I only focused on why he is "perfect", though he isn't and I am not, and nobody is completely, totally right in everything that they do each hour of the day.
I would say that there's a "cool" thing that he plays, and he does it well and convincingly enough that others accept him, but I saw a little past that, which I knew he didn't like in the back of his mind.
He told me that he used to be into dorky things like Lord of the Rings and he wore these ugly glasses, was short and a bit round. I found that adorable though, and I wished that he could proudly say what he was instead of trying to convince me that he changed into this suave, athletic guy that he was. And he is that suave guy that has girls swamping him, but then I remember that the last thing that attracts me to a guy is how many girls he gets. I know that some girls like to go after the guy who girls swoon over, but I've always held a torch for the sweet guys that are obviously flawed and suck at hitting on girls, but good at homework, reading, and who can find lame Sci-Fi movies intriguing. I like lame stuff, but the only guys who like lame stuff that I know of lack a confidence that I'm also attracted to. I want someone who knows who he is, geeky or otherwise, doesn't apologize for it, can hold intelligent conversation, has a kind heart and motivation to be something in life so that I don't get distracted from my own successes, understands irony and sarcasm as it really is, and therefore has a sense of humor that is beyond surface-level funnies, and can let his walls come down so that I can be softer too. This is the kind of guy I want, and it only took me eighteen years to figure it out (I'm sure that I'll change a few things about the "guy" I want in some years' time, but for now, I know that I have an idea about what I need). And to be quite honest, this ExInfatuation guy? He doesn't fit these molds from what he's shown me. If I've learned anything about what I want physically, although I like a guy with a six-pack as much as any other girl, the guy with the six-pack is not who I want to be with. He's a guy I'd like to hookup with, sure. But the guy I'd be with long term is someone who I found relatively attractie even though other girls didn't agree, who wasn't chubby but wasn't skinny, and wanted to spend his time laying in bed watching good-quality movies with me over going to the gym to gain muscle mass. I'm not saying I want an unhealthy guy because I would want him to work out occasionally, as I do also, but I would want us to have things in common besides maintaining our physical appearances. I'm not quite as "soft" as a lot of other girls are because if I talk about cute stuff and cuddling I'd have to be really comfortable with a guy, because even if I do something physical with a boyfriend or talk to him often, there's a very small chance that I let him in emotionally. I know that emotions come first and physical parts of a relationship come second, but I haven't been totally emotionally passionate about a guy before, while I have felt some lukewarm physical interactions between guys. I saw on New Girl before, the show about the girl named Jess (well, duh she's a girl) who moves in with three guys, that this one girl couldn't have good sex because she wasn't emotionally connected to the guy she was sleeping with. For girls to have the best sex, they need to feel connected to the guy that their with, which is probably why I haven't had mind-blowing bed time before. But anyway, now I'm off track .
The point is...infatuation over old flames? Forget about it. If it's been years since you guys had a thing in the first place, chances are that you both have changed to become two completely different people, don't know anything about each other anymore, probably have different personalities, and might not even be remotely interested in what you guys once were at this point. Basically, you are strangers with a weird history together if you weren't either friends first, or best friends in your relationship.
I'm getting too sleepy to finish this post today, but I got the bulk of what was on my mind out anyways. So, I'll finish this tomorrow or whenever I get the free time!.

-That Girl, we'll always have the junior prom from three years ago, my ExInfatuation.


BTW, I strongly believe that she did not love him. ^ If she did, there's no way she would have gotten onto that plane, no matter what.

A Few Secrets Never Hurt Anyone, Right?

Dear Diary, (Starting this post at 10:42 PM. I'm really mentally and physically tired right now, but too full of ideas I've been over-thinking, like a mad woman, over the past two days to just allow myself to rest like a normal human being. Sometimes I wonder if everybody over-thinks from time to time, or if some people really never try to scratch the surface of their mind and just submerge themselves in what-if's, how-is-it's, I-can't-believe-it's, and why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people-questions. Because that's where philosophy, religion, faith, and spirituality kick in, I suppose. If you believe in God, after all, if anything bad happens in your life, you can simply say, "It's in God's plan for me." For those who don't believe in God, however, there seems to be a bit more weight on their shoulders when they face a challenge. If nobody is watching out for each of us, who's to say that we don't consciously cause everything that happens in our lives in some way or another and are therefore personally responsible for each good or bad morally-conflicted event that we come across?)

Wanna know a secret? (No, I'm not leaking military secrets if that's what you're looking for on this blog. If so, you have spelled the URL address a tad bit off.)
Well, actually I would say that there is nobody who knows all of my secrets. Like, I cannot name one person who knows me front and back, the sarcastic and bubbly sides, my apprehensive yet outspoken nature, and the emotionally independence I have that conflicts with my disparity for emotional security and consistency.
Except for you Diary, you know a lot about me. (Great, now I'm going nuts talking to my computer like its my therapist)
But something that has started irking me recently is the absence of my father during these teenage years. Now that I'm eighteen and graduating high school, I'm pissed that my dad wasn't there to help me get to this place at all. Not to say that he didn't pay my child support up until now, offer me rides to places that I needed to get to once in a while, or somewhat try to see me every Saturday. But even when he does see me on Saturdays, it just consists of him picking me up from my mom's house with his mom in the car who he just took grocery shopping, us small talking in the car, him dropping off me and my grandmother. Then he "plans" a trip to Hawaii to go on vacation during the summer with me, though he never goes through with stuff like that. I've put up with it though, because the last thing I want is for him to know that I needed him to be there while I was growing up more than he can possibly imagine. He doesn't deserve my emotional turmoil because he's barely tried to do what a father does. He actually said to me one time, "I can't talk to your brother as well as I can talk to you. He never talks to me." And what actually pisses me off about him now isn't that he wasn't there for me as I grew up, it's that my brother never had a father to look up to. And it's my brother who had to take the role of my father for all these years, teaching me life lessons and lending me a shoulder when I need to talk to someone, driving me around the city, babysitting, and helping me with homework for like thirteen years. And I'm mad that my dad made my brother's life so hard and hasn't been there to support him when he needed it the most, like when he went through a recent breakup and the terrible emotions that came from it. My dad would just say to me, "He never talks to me. He could talk to me about these things." But why would he ask advice of a man who has never tried to get to know him his entire life?
I still remember the night of my thirteenth birthday, and it pains me to think about today. I had a nice birthday party with my best friends and family, but I was waiting on some, or any at all, type of "Happy Birthday" message from my dad. Thirteen, to me at the time, was a really big deal. I was becoming teenager and this was frightening to me because I felt myself leaving my childhood behind. Middle school, as everybody knows, is a weird time and I needed support from my family really badly to know that I wasn't about to make bad decisions in the transition from elementary to middle and high school. I wanted to know that someone gave a shit about what I was doing in my life, essentially.
But midnight past, and still no call from my dad. Before I turned thirteen, I was a straight-A student at my school, with a lot of passion for making something out of myself in life. That night, though, I came to the conclusion that my dad didn't care about me. I thought to myself, "Why am I trying when even my father doesn't care about me? I'm his child, but he could care less that I was born. If he doesn't think I'm worth a 'happy birthday, my daughter, I'm proud of you and can't wait to see what you are going to accomplish in your life because I believe in what you are and can be" than I must be a big waste of time and space."  And I sat in the bathroom on the toilet with the lid closed quietly crying my eyes out on the night of my thirteenth birthday, trying not to disturb my mom's sleep.
All I've ever wanted to hear is that I'm good enough for my father's affection and acknowledgement. So, there's a secret for you. When I have a kid of my own, I know for a fact that I would never be with a man who took fatherhood or our children's lives for granted. I know that my brother always wanted a dad to lean on when he was confused, a man to teach him how to play sports as a young boy, and discipline him into being a well-respected guy. But he never got that guidance, and for that, I will always resent my father for making my brother's life harder.
And so, my father missed telling me "Happy Thirteenth," and actually didn't care to contact me until three weeks after my birthday had passed, asking if I wanted to be picked up the following Saturday. I said, "Okay," and life continued, but the hurt stayed and affected my entire mindset for my years as a teenager. I became full of angst and grew angry at my mom for not giving me the traditional family life that I yearned for so badly, constantly getting into heated arguments with her and giving her short replies out of my spite. I matured out of that stage by Junior year, luckily, but I never got over the feelings I felt as that disappointed thirteen year old. In high school, I felt like none of the work I did for teachers mattered, because if my dad doesn't care what I'm doing, I thought, than why should I care. I almost dropped out of school, ditching class to be with friends or hang out with boys who I had "things" with, or sometimes feeling detached from everybody and wanting to sit by myself to do absolutely nothing but be alone, while also desperate to feel connected to anything.
It's funny that nobody understands this detached part of me though, and I don't like to show my serious side off. That's probably why I'm always goofing off and laughing, making jokes about everything to build that wall I have yet to completely let down for anybody.
Anyway, my eighteenth birthday just passed. I remember thinking in the middle of high school, "Wow, my dad totally fucked up my teenage life by ignoring me on my thirteenth birthday. What will happen if the same thing happens when I turn eighteen? Will my whole life be just as miserable?"
And it seems like such an insignificant, overly-dramatized thing that I didn't get a stupid birthday-gram or such when I turned thirteen, but it impacted me more than I can possibly explain in words.
The week before my eighteenth, my dad decided to go on a month long vacation with his friend to visit a few countries. "It's cheaper if we leave the week before," he said to me. "We'll go to dinner before I go to celebrate, okay? There's a fancy restaurant that my friend owns that we can go to." I said, "Okay." And it never happened. On the day of my actual birthday, he sent me a text message from Singapore saying, "Happy birthday" and I replied, "Thanks, hope you're having fun." He brought me back a bunch of expensive necklaces and other random items from his trip. I'm not angry with him, but yet I find it difficult to return his calls on Saturday mornings now and choose to sleep-in to go visit my grandparents with my brother instead of siting with my dad in the car.
I know that a girl learns what to look for in her future husband by her relationship with her father, but what has my father really taught me about relationships between people? That they're shallow, materialistic  and inconsistent? That people care much less than I like to think they do?
Well, anyway I just felt like lettin' this secret out after all these years. I'm not sure what moral can be derived from it, but I'd rather repress the feelings of this story than let them take over my life. I know who I am, and I  thank my extremely strong-willed mother for raising me, pretty much on her own.

-That Girl, because we don't give single mothers or good fathers enough credit.

Because When Do You Ever Really Know Someone?

Dear Diary, ((I started this post yesterday, but got sidetracked by the fact that I
a.) Got a late-night goodnight call/hour-long talk from Andrew and b.) Was tired from having Andrew over the day before because c.) I stayed up late talking to him the night before that.
But I swear it's a non-clingy functional friendship!
...I think.))

It's been a while, I know. What has happened since my last escapades with Andrew the friend with benefits, the guy who I wrote the First Boyfriend Memoir about, or Nice Jock from way back in the day? Well, I'll tell you all about it in the next few posts, but for now let's concentrate on Andrew.
Contrary to the romantic courtships and heartfelt touchy moments that are portrayed in romantic-comedy films in the media, friends with benefits are friends for a reason. It's actually kind of sad that Andrew and I don't connect with chemistry, or that X-factor thing that you can't put your finger on, that passionate drive-you-crazy spark that comes from making out with hands held tight and planning a life together while screaming at each other on picnic dates at the park in the middle of the day. It's that passion that I think differentiates friends from couples. It's the reason why when Andrew and I hang out with his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend we call our hangout, no not a double date, a couple and a "couple of friends" hanging out. We don't really kiss on the lips much, since there's no chemistry there, but physically we're both somewhat attracted to each other which results in the "benefits" we share off-and-on. Like an open relationship almost, except we aren't trying to kid anyone with what we're doing by slapping a title on it. We're friends, and whatever happens inside that friendship is personal, and there's no point in pretending that it's something that it isn't. He's a guy who I could talk to for hours and be weird as hell around knowing that as much as he might judge me, it's with an appreciation for my authenticity and comfortable nature I have developed around him that he earned by getting to know me on a deeper level before anything physical happened. The reason we have a functional relationship despite the physical nature of it, I think, is because neither of us have a real motive from being friends. Whether one of us is dating somebody else, or we're sharing summer nights together, we enjoy our conversations and respect the other person's loyalty, since true friends, as we have discussed before, are hard to find. We both appreciate having someone to share the little stuff with and someone who expects nothing back when the other person gives, who is around whenever the other is upset, despite their evident flaws. In retrospect, I could probably consider Andrew my best friend. Even though I go through periods when I hate him (and I don't mean getting angry at him during my time of the month, wherein, by the way, Andrew is super nice by trying to comfort me with different methods of getting rid of my cramps, i.e. "On Google it says green tea and warm towels help, you want some?") and he gets frustrated with my stubbornness by not taking his advice on my problems, we always end up talking it out with explanations, apologies, and long late-night phone calls. I read somewhere that most people end up best friends with the people that they initially hate, which makes sense. Hate, after all, is not the opposite of love; apathy is its antonym. So what hate is, really, is a strong emotion that is still that, a emotion. And if you can harbor hate for someone, if they make amends who's to say that the relationship won't bounce up to love, loyalty, and trust?
When Andrew and I first met, the initial few weeks of our getting to know each other consisted of him being super friendly to him being a real asshole. We met when I was breaking up with The First Boyfriend, and he was a really good listener. But we ended up having a mini-high-school-PG-13-level hookup where I ended up with a hickey even though we never kissed. We went to a party for his best friend's girlfriend's birthday and met a few interesting characters. One was a stoner-type of guy with long legs and hair to match. He asked Andrew, "Is this your girlfriend; you guys are a couple?" most likely because we were attached to the hip for a while after we met and frequently would go off by ourselves to sit on a desolated staircase or bench to talk about life. Now, I didn't expect Andrew to be super protective of me since we just met or emotionally-attached since our friendship was emotionally completely platonic at the time, but I didn't expect his rudeness.
"No, I am ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT single." We both stared at him. "She's just my bitch," he added and give Stoner a high-five. "What?" Andrew asked looking at me as though he said nothing wrong. Naturally, I was pissed and I never forgot that he spoke so low of me. Now fast forward three years.
The other night Andrew and I were on the phone and he asked what I thought about him when I first met.
"Well, I thought you were exactly how you are now when we met initially, but then you got kind of...weird. Not weird exactly...more like an asshole."
"What, really? What did I do?"
"You called me your bitch.," I said lightly. I never brought it up with him before because even though it always reminds me of why I would definitely never date him, he hasn't said anything relatively mean like that since.
"What..." he thought about it.
"Yeah."
"I don't think I said that. I would never say that."
"----"
"I think I would remember if I said that, I don't remember that."
"Well you did. We didn't talk for a while after that."
But it just goes to show that as you get older, you see people change. Who knew that this asshole, this douchebag of a wimp would end up being the one who I trust with so many of my secrets and with the fragility of my emotional state three years later?
 That being said...Andrew has come back in the picture since our blow up last summer. Btw, can you believe that last summer was pretty much an entire year ago? It just surprises me how fast senior year really passes by, and I wonder if the rest of my life is going to pass by this quick. The change of exiting high school is kinda freaking me out in the back of my head because I keep having nightmares of family members dying/trying to kill me with knives and/or saws with yellow handles and/or pistols concealed in their shirt sleeves by chasing me around random locations. So, that sucks. Anyway...
When he went out with his last girlfriend, the one after the one who replaced me at the end of summer, I went out with another guy around that time. Slowly, but surely we became friends again and built up each other's trust by being supportive of one another as both our short-lived relationships fell apart.
Speed up to New Year's Eve, the first time we hung out since our messy fallout in the summer. We were just with two of his best friends and one of their girlfriends (yes, the one who's birthday party we attended sophomore year) eating and walking around the city to welcome the new year of 2013. Funny that I mention it though, because we missed the countdown while waiting for some warm to-go drinks at a local Asian dessert cafe. "Why did nobody tell us that midnight was coming or care that it's New Year's Eve?!" we discussed among ourselves. Anyway, we ended up hanging out at Andrew's house, talking and watching funny videos on his laptop. It got late though, so everyone left to go home except for me, not wanting to walk in my door at like 3AM to a pissed-off mother.
The two of us just sat on his bed and talked. That turned to laying under the covers and talking. And that turned to our faces getting really close together as we talked. Which turned to us making out for a while, although we both really lost any sense of chemistry that we had in the summer in my opinion, and that turned to us sleeping with each other the way that friends with benefits tend to do. And it was the first time that he ever finished with a girl, even though I myself have never been emotionally connected enough with any guy to finish.
But now it's May and neither of us have dated anyone since, even though he off-and-on likes that Korean girl that he left me for last summer and seems to have a confusing off-and-on thing with her, though he has expressed to me that he has no desire to have a commitment with her knowing that he would end up breaking up with her again because of their intellectual incompatibility. Andrew came over on Monday, the first time that I've had a guy in my bed since The First Boyfriend back two years ago since I've been pretty cautious with inviting guys over/going to guys' houses after everything that happened with him. I would say that Andrew is better than he used to be in bed, but still no grand enchilada for me..
In my defense against people who might judge me for my pseudo relationship-friendship with Andrew, I would simply say that inter-personal relationships between people are much, much more complicated than they seem and that labels only mean so much. Because I know that I am not a person who would feel comfortable getting around with different guys, I value that I have somebody who I trust enough to share so much with. Our many talks on the phone that build up for months of no physical contact, but just emotional support lead me to believe that he's not just after one thing from me and it gives me the confidence to continue whatever I feel like doing with him, knowing that there's more behind it.
AND SO, that's what's been going on with Andrew and I. What the future holds for us, I have no idea. And there's no point in trying to project where its going at the rate we're going because all I know is that I love him as my friend and would be somewhat sad if we had a finite fallout with each other. He said to me before that he knows me better than I probably even know myself, which is a bit of a stretch, but it's nice to think that there's somebody out on this planet of billions of people who has tried to take their time to understand me. I don't understand everything that he says or does, but I feel like deep down I know that in his core his experiences in life have shaped him into a good person who is just trying to be accepted by others and loved by the people who he won't admit to caring about.
For a feel-good end to this post, I'll include our Thanksgiving 2012 messages to each other:
Me: "Happy Thanksgiving! We've had very weird memories but I'm thankful to have you as my friend hahah"
Him:  "Haha you too :] I'm grateful I met you, for the better and worse."    

-That Girl, because can you ever really know someone? And does it matter if you never do?